


don't really need to wonder at all

by snsk



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Coming Out, Fluff, Jam, M/M, Schmoop, boys with feeeeeelings, can he, louis can't burn jam, tune in to masterchef next week to find out what happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-25 07:32:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsk/pseuds/snsk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The jam is Louis' midlife crisis," Zayn explains.</p><p>"Quarter-life," Liam corrects automatically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Huh," Zayn says. He looks down at the exactly sixteen knee-length boxes of strawberries. Lifts a cardboard flap.

"Huh," he says again. 

"Be excited for me, Zayn," Louis says, darting between the sixteen boxes to ensure each strawberry is in tip-top condition. "Squeal a little squeal of pure ecstasy for me, why don't you."

Zayn looks up at Louis calmly and serenely. It must be all the yoga Louis has never actually seen him do. 

"Louis, babe," he says, "you've got your apron on backwards."

Louis looks down. Zayn, of course, is right. Strawberry Swirl, pony princess, had been on inside out. 

"You're a true savior, Zayn Esmerelda Malik," Louis declares, untying his bow. 

"That I am," Zayn agrees. "Now tell me what the fuck is up with the fruit."

•••

Niall is up next. He's rubbing at his eyes when he stumbles into the kitchen, trips over a box and nearly falls face-first into the stove.

"Motherfucking buggering assdick," is the politest thing he manages for eleven minutes. 

"Now now, Niall," counsels Louis. "Look where you're walking."

"You almost killed the jam," Zayn says sadly. "Not the jam, Niall."

"I'll kill your stupid arses," says Niall, not his best and definitely not his politest since he's still fifteen percent asleep, but he brightens up considerably after Louis manages to overcook him two strips of bacon. "What's the jam for, then?"

•••

Liam lets in the sun at nine am, because even when he's doing the walk of shame he's still disgustingly punctual and chirpy and righteous about it.

"Heyyy," he says, snagging one of Harry's beloved bananas. "'s with the strawberries, Lou? You making jam?"

"What I don't understand," Louis says to the room in general, "is how Liam managed to figure shit out after one cursory sweeping glance. Why aren't you both wise and reasonable and sweeping like Liam?"

"I'll sweep you," Niall says, making less than no sense whatsoever, stuffing bacon into Louis' forehead without really looking.

"The jam is Louis' midlife crisis," Zayn explains.

"Quarter-life," Liam corrects automatically.

•••

Harry is the last to wake up.

He's still lacking sleep; a week of parties and events he'd been made to attend night after night had ended two days ago, with him crawling into Louis' bed at four am and lining himself flush against Louis' back, smelling like vodka and expensive perfume, but murmuring "Lou, Lou," lips moving, "I missed you," against Louis' neck.

They make him go out more than the others; he's more exposed, more attention generated with him at a party, and they've got the movie, and they need the publicity of him pressing a kiss to the corner of a random blonde girl's mouth. That's how they justify it, anyway. The rest all shrug; they're not bothered, Louis is sure, about Harry being da shit, but it bothers him, it bothers Louis, especially when Harry looks at the ground, frustrated and trying to hide it, hands curled into fists, after yet another one of those meetings.

Louis had woken up the next day, and there was his boy, draped all over him like the most unaccommodating octopus ever. Louis had adjusted himself amongst his limbs and looked at him, and thought of the sixteen year old who'd leaned in thoughtlessly and kissed Louis everywhere and laughed, because he'd thought he'd get to do it forever.

Two days later, the jam arrives.

Harry stands in his grey sweatpants and stupid pie chart shirt, and looks confusedly at the floor.

"Ni," he says, "what's up with the fruit?"

"It's not Ni this time, but thanks for the thought," says Niall. "It's Lou."

"But Louis can't cook," says Harry insultingly.

Louis holds up two strips of bacon indignantly.

Harry stares pointedly at the blackened charred edges of said strips in lieu of a response.

"Okay, so I'm not Masterchef material," Louis concedes. "But I can-  boil. I can boil jam. You just need to boil jam. Seven simple steps. That's what Siri said."

Harry steps closer, peers into a box. "Strawberries," he says happily, because he has a Fruit Problem. "Louis?"

"Yeah, Haz," Louis says, tugging a huge pot he's never seen before in his life out of the cupboard under the sink with a flourish, and nearly braining Liam.

"What's the jam for?" Harry enquires.

"Ah," Louis says. "You mean who. Who the jam's for."

"This is when it gets interesting," Zayn informs Harry. "And by interesting I mean mildly insane."

"I'll take my chances," Harry says, cross-legged on the floor and mouth already smeared with red juice. Louis kind of wants to either - spread it all over and lick it off him, or wipe it cleanly away with his thumb and kiss his forehead, but mostly the licking, which is a pretty good representation of how he feels about Harry Styles in general, really.

"Who's the jam for, Lou?" he asks.

"Oh," Louis says, looking back at his huge pot and dumping, like, half a box into it. "Management."

•••

"I'm sorry, I must've heard wrong," Harry announces. "I thought I heard Lou say that the boxes of delicious almost strawberry jam on our floor are all going to Management."

"Yes, and now we've reached the mild insanity," Zayn says, over his paper (actual morning paper, because Zayn), "but hear him out, it gets better."

"He's making jam for management so they'll let you come out," Niall announces brightly.

"Shut the fuck up, I wanted Louis to tell him!" 

"I am indeed," Louis confirms, "bribing them with jam. So they'll have no choice but to let us."

"This plan doesn't even make any sense," Liam says resignedly from where he's leaning against the sink, eating his Healthy Brans or something equally disgusting.

"Your face doesn't make any sense," Louis tells him ridiculously.

"I think it's brilliant," Niall declares staunchly.

"You think rubber ducks are brilliant," says Zayn, all matter of fact.

"Yeah, you'd better duck," says Niall completely reasonably.

"It's cool, though," Zayn says, with a sort of quietly amused approval. "Insane, but cool."

"I really don't know what's going to happen," Liam says. "Not that it's not cool, because something should happen, finally," he says suddenly, because Liam's cool like that.

"Harry?" Louis asks, because he's just staring, gaze unreadable and flickering between the fruit and the boys. "What do you think," he says quietly.

Harry looks up from his box, and his eyes meet Louis'. 

He's sort of grinning really a lot, all over his fruit-stained face.

"I think it's awesome," he says. 

•••

So they make jam.

It's harder than it looks; it's sweaty and hot and heavy and messy and fragile and did Louis mention the heat? The first batch turns out squick-face soury. The second one is basically red sticky sugar. The third one is liquid, not jam. Jars of sweet sticky substances litter their tourbus and the smell of warmish fruit permeates the air constantly; Louis dreams of being kidnapped by shadowy Strawberry Shortcake-esque figures.

Harry helps a lot, because Louis can't even boil, apparently. Zayn and Liam stir. Niall tastes, even when he's not supposed to.

At night, Harry curls into him, closer than before, somehow, a reality Louis didn't even know was possible, and Louis steels his resolve even more with every jar of jam because this boy is worth the universe, the universe and all the ones we haven't yet figured out are there.

•••

"Here's some jam," Louis announces, dumping it on the table. It looks out of place there, the old Nutella+banana jar amongst the sleek shine of the glass, the polished finish of everything in the meeting room. It looks sort of perfect. "I want to do an interview with Harry. I want to tell the world how he begs for my dick every night."

Out of the corner of his eye, Louis can see Liam drop his head on his palm. He can start to hear Niall's giggle, catch Zayn's trying-awful-hard-to-be-done-with-your-shit-here-Tommo look which comes off kind of, strangely enough, fond.

Out of the corner of his eye, right next to him, Louis can see Harry slowly dimple, the verge of open amusement. He looks sixteen again, like he's about to kiss Louis everywhere and laugh about it, because he'll get to do it forever.

•••


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeaaaaah this was supposed to be a standalone!! then i realized the jam fic was unfinished and this would be perfect as an extension to that, so.
> 
> much less cracky/humorous than the previous chapter. it is also in Paul the Head of Security's point of view. i don't own paul. i am not paul. but i like to think that he supports harry and louis as much as the most fervent of us.

•••

Paul was around them a lot, obviously, like, every day. 

They annoyed the shit out of him, but mostly in the best way possible. They were loud and ridiculous and absurd and good kids, really good kids, and when Paul said that they were like his kids, his own, he meant it.

He felt fiercely protective of them, would take a bullet for any, tried to ensure they got the most sleep they could and would kill if anybody hurt them, which was a bit awkward, seeing as most of the reason they were hurt most times was his own boss.

Management didn't want Louis and Harry to come out, not yet, and they'd agreed, were still adhering to the deal, but it was, in Paul's opinion, getting kind of stupid.

It was just. He hadn't seen them fall in love or was either's special confidante or anything, but he remembered the first time he'd met them.

Liam had gone, "I'm sorry, in advance," and shook his hand, and Niall had laughed loud and agreed with him, and smiled wide at Paul. Zayn had sauntered out of a door a few minutes later, and he'd had a wary expression and a cigarette dangling but Paul had reserved judgement and he'd been right, and now he fussed more at Zayn than the others, worried about his food and his sleep. He was too skinny, was the thing.

Louis and Harry had arrived after that.

Harry had had a thumb hooked into one of Louis' belt loops as they walked up. It was a casual, direct gesture. It was a statement: it is what it is. It was an ultimatum: take it or leave it. It was in the set of Harry's shoulders, and the resolution in Louis' eyes. It hadn't been in the contract, or discussed yet, or anything.

Paul had already felt kind of intensely protective of them.

"Hi, I'm Louis," Louis had said. "This dumbass over here is Harry." 

He'd looked over at Harry then, with a sort of fondness that Paul, until now, still felt a bit guilty for observing. It was quiet, like the secret it was; quiet, and burning.

"'m not a dumbass, 'm Harry," Harry'd said. "Hi, Paul."

"Hi, Harry," Paul had replied. "Hi, Louis."

"Are you going to be our new daddy?" Louis had asked, batting his eyelashes insanely at him.

"Why are you being gross, Louis," Zayn had enquired, while Liam, simultaneously, had ordered Louis to stop "scaring him off, he's nice," and Niall'd been laughing. 

"Not yet, asked them if I could meet you blokes first," Paul had said. Harry's thumb had still been in Louis' belt, knuckles drumming absently on denim.

"Do we pass your inspection, then?" he'd asked.

Paul's mind had randomly flashed to the article he'd read in The Sun that morning, about Harry Styles' latest Cougar Conquest, or something of the sort. He'd tried to reconcile that to the boy in front of him, the one who looked like he wasn't letting go of his boyfriend unless absolutely necessary.

"You'll do," Paul had said, smiling a bit.

 

"Paaaaul," said Zayn, drawing out the a, "I wanna go out tonight."

"Alright," said Paul. "Just you?"

"Oi, I want to come too!" Louis said, looking up from his phone. "Zayn, you ungrateful thoughtless creature, after all I've done for you-"

"I was just clearing it first, good god," said Zayn.

"Babe, we're going out tonight," Louis said, pulling an earphone out of Harry's ear. Harry was on the floor, leaning his head against Louis' thigh.

"Okay," Harry said simply. He did that a lot, follow Louis without question, and some might think it was a Bad Thing in a relationship, suppressing your own wants, but the thing was, some didn't know it was because mostly, what Louis wanted, Harry wanted as well. 

Paul cleared it with management, who told him to get them back before they got shitfaced and started getting each other off in the middle of the club, in slightly politer terms.

"Do my best," said Paul, because that was the best you could do, with these boys, who, after all was said and done, were boys.

Liam and Niall opted to stay in and Skype and sleep, respectively. In the car, Louis was singing along to Christina Aguilera while Zayn steadfastly ignored him and Harry hummed a little bit in response, instagramming a picture of his shoelaces, or something.

"Harry, you're not being proper back up vocals," said Louis. "Be proper back up vocals, or don't be back up vocals at all."

"Okay," said Harry. "I won't be back up vocals at all, diva." 

"Alright, then, see if I care," Louis said haughtily. "Zayn, you're up."

Zayn looked up at him. "No," he said.

"Paul!" announced Louis.

"Not today, mate, sorry," Paul said.

Louis made a loud harrumph, but as it was the last chorus, he had to sing. Which he did, with great gusto and hand waving.

"No matter what you do," Harry sang along, without looking up from his phone.

Louis beamed at him. "No matter what you do!!!" he yelled maniacally.

"The sun will always shine-"

"The sun will always shine, ooOOH, I am bee!!! yoo!!! ti!! full!! In every single way!! Yes words!! Can't!!! Bring me down!!! Oh!!!! So don't you bring me down today!!! Ayyy!!!! Ohh!!"

Harry tried to stifle a grin, and mostly failed.

Louis leaned over and snuggled his forehead against Harry's stomach. "You haven't managed to corrupt him all the way just yet, asshole," he told Zayn triumphantly, pointing a random finger at what wasn't Zayn, but the tinted window.

"Well, he's a lost cause," Zayn said, and Louis and Harry weren't looking, but his face was fond.

•••

Thing was. They weren't even halfway drunk, when it happened. Thing was, it wasn't their faults: they were keeping respectable distances on the dance floor, had only had one or two fruity drinks at the most. Thing was, there weren't supposed to be cameras in the loos. Or anyone there, for that matter.

Thing was, Louis had gestured for Harry to come to the toilets, not even so he could get him off. It was so they could, Harry told Paul later, kiss deep and slow and fond, in the middle of all the sharp noise and bright lights. Harry chuckled, small.

"D'you know? - I don't know if anyone told you," he said, "remember when we had that jam-making session two months back?"

Paul remembered. The bus had smelled strawberry-sweet, had felt humid and steamy for weeks. 

"Louis told management to let us come out," Harry said. "With the jam as a present. A bribe. I don't know. It didn't work, obviously, but," and here he smiled, wide and real, his Louis smile. "We got a lot more leeway after that, remember?"

"Yeah," Paul said, recalling how they'd been able to touch in interviews again, how Louis hadn't bothered continuing to hide his crinkled Harry eyes. "That was good."

"Well, we didn't know," Harry said, "that all we needed to do was try to hide it more. That was what we were trying to do, y'know, when he pulled me to the loo." 

He poked a finger thoughtfully through the hole in the knees of his jeans. "Hide it."

•••

The headlines read: 1D GAY LOVE AFFAIR? 

Crude, but effective. 

Accompanying it was a not grainy enough photo of Louis pressing Harry against the wall. And when Paul said not grainy enough, he meant, it was clearly Louis Tomlinson snogging the shit of his bandmate and womanizer extraordinaire, Harry Styles.

They debated a bit on whether to claim Photoshop, or lookalikes, last-ditch attempts to swear the kiss off as a drunken mistake, but then other people started sticking their noses in, like. First-hand accounts of them at the club, and fired workers and family friends coming out of the woodwork with their own Louis-and-Harry stories, and then there were Louis and Harry themselves, who flat-out refused to go on record and say that it hadn't been them.

"I don't see the point," Louis was telling Liam, "of making the situation worse than it already is. Half the world already knows it's us. If we lie now, they'll hold us to the lying forever, you know?"

Liam nodded. He rolled the football back, pushed a hand through his sweaty hair. They were on the floor of the parking compound, having finished an intense one-on-one with two cars as goalposts. 

Paul was simply thankful that no owners had come out to see the near-misses. 

"You okay with this, though?" Liam asked, because. Yeah. Paul got the question, because Louis had been the one, willing to PR the fake girlfriend, willing to twist the words, willing to hand over the Twitter password, as long as it meant Harry was protected, as much as was possible. 

And this, this meant blowing the whole thing wide open, and Harry wouldn't have the protection of what Louis tried to do for them, anymore.

Paul suddenly felt immensely sad. Thing was, he'd only just turned twenty-two.

"I'm okay with this," Louis said. "S'what I made jam for, remember?" 

Liam smiled. "It worked, I was wrong," he told Louis.

"Too right," said Louis. "Told you so." He was biting at his lower lip, though, probably unconsciously, and Paul knew Liam had noticed.

Liam didn't say anything about that, just gestured for the ball. Louis used the inside of his wrist to roll it over, and Liam said: "You'll have Harry, though. And us. We'll beat the shit out of anyone who even tries to look at you funny."

Louis did that curl of his mouth he did whenever Liam showed that he'd been truly and absolutely corrupted by the Tommo. Das my boy, the look said. Paul was pretty sure that Liam would've beat the shit out of them, corrupted by Louis or not, and the whole terribly depressed feeling got better: these boys had each other.

•••

"Alright," the woman - Paul had never been bothered with learning her name - said, giving them a last once-over. "just. Be yourselves, I guess. Be all - in love, as how you do. Just stick to the story we've gone over, when it comes up, and. Good luck."

The last two words sounded genuine, but Paul couldn't forget that this was the woman who, for two years, had fought hard to shoot down any rumor of their actually being together, had contributed a great deal to the lying and belittling and scorn. 

There was a reason Paul had gone into security - to protect, to protect his clients, and he hadn't been able to stand that shit. Still, it hadn't been his business. He'd kept his mouth shut. 

Ellen was waiting, and they were all in the limo, and Louis was gripping Harry's hand, staring down at their intertwined fingers. 

Harry looked - calmer, he'd always been the one who'd wanted this openly. Harry was also the one who took the negativity to heart a lot.

Zayn had his arm around Louis' shoulders, fingers reaching over to pat absently at Harry. Liam and Niall were quiet, but Niall smiled over at Paul when he saw him looking. 

They seemed to be waiting, it felt like. They had this strange - rapport as a band, where they just sort of - knew, and right now they were waiting.

Then Louis lifted his head, and shrugged. He rubbed a thumb over Harry's skin.

 "C'mon, then, lads," Louis said, reaching over and unlocking the door for Harry. "Won't do to be late for the shit we've waited three years for."

•••

"So let's talk about this," said Ellen, "this picture, thing, what I've been hearing so much about. I'm going to cut to the chase here. Is it you?"

Paul could see Louis' feet tense up against the sofa. He wondered who else was noticing.

"Yes, it is," Louis said. "That's us, alright." Harry nodded.

"Ah, to be a teenager again," said Ellen, easy. "So was it a - one-off thing, or-"

"No," Louis said. He was smiling, they were all trying to play this off as casually as possible. "Yeah, we do this quite a lot, actually." 

Then Harry said: "Probably too much, to be honest," and that wasn't in the script, and Louis turned, to smile at Harry. It was his smile, his Harry smile, and just like that, Paul could see it getting easier for them, for real.

"Whose fault is that?" Louis was asking Harry, "insatiable little-" and Liam said, "guys, we're on /Ellen/," and Louis let out a slightly hysterical splutter, and there was laughter, in the audience, scattered but real.

Ellen was smiling. "To clear things up, though," she said gently, "last I heard, you had a girlfriend, Louis."

Louis said, carefully: "Me and Eleanor - were never going to work out long term. We're still good friends." 

All of which was true. Ellen nodded understandingly, and turned her attention elsewhere.

"So, tell me, Harry," she said, "when did you first start crushing on him?"

"The X-Factor, actually," Harry said, and the audience let out an aww, "I still remember, this one time, I almost fell into the pool, judges' house, and, like-"

Paul noticed Liam and Zayn and Niall pointedly mouthing along, "and I was almost drowning, right? Flailing about, arms and legs everywhere, when I feel, like, hands around my arms-" and by this time, the audience was laughing along, all of them. 

Louis was just looking at Harry, so fond it had to hurt. Paul hoped he wasn't ever going to have to try to hide that light in his eyes again.

"This is the probably most-told Harry story ever," Niall put in, "the one where Louis saves him from like, five feet of water."

"It was at least six," Harry huffed.

•••

It wasn't easy, of course it wasn't. 

Paul's job was affected - in little ways - having to restrain the urge to punch the eyes out of a group who'd yelled out slurs as Paul steered them into a sports shop, having to physically restrain Zayn from doing the same thing once he'd turned and seen them. In big ways - the crowd getting ever larger, more security being brought in, noisier than ever before, cheering and support trying to drown out the detractors at every venue. 

Having to sift through the fanmail more carefully. Taking each security threat about ten times more seriously.

Also, if it was harder on him, it had to be about fifty times worse for Harry and Louis. There were tears and frayed nerves and days where Harry would just sit, thumbing through Twitter, or Louis would just disappear, with Zayn or alone, evading security, for the first few weeks, but it was slowly getting better. Or Louis and Harry were getting stronger. Paul liked to think so.

It wasn't easy, but Paul knew it was worth it. For these kids.

There was jam, awaiting him as he sat down to lunch about nine weeks after the Club incident. Homemade strawberry jam, in an old pickle jar.

He didn't have to look up to know who was milling around - Liam, nodding at him, Paul nodding back. Niall, with customary wide grin, slapping Paul on the back. Zayn on Liam's left, quirking his mouth up at Paul. He was still too skinny, but he'd do. They'd do.

Louis had his hand in Harry's hair, pawing with lazy feline movement at the curls. Harry's body was turned slightly towards him, even as he grinned at Paul.

 "'cause you missed out on the jam before," he said cheerfully.

He'd just turned twenty. He was just a kid. Was the thing.

Paul looked down at it. Grown heads of security did not cry in front of their clients. He had a strange feeling of maybe wanting to, but he banished that thought quickly.

"You all trying to bribe me into something, then?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact," said Louis, "there's this awesome thing tomorrow night which coincides with that interview we-"

"Shut'p, Lou," Zayn informed him. "Thanks, Paul. For everything, y'know."

"Yeah," said Paul. "No big deal."

•••

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end!!! 
> 
> .... unless....... stuff happens.... like say....... marriage..... kids...... and i somehow..... connect that to jam..... 

**Author's Note:**

> the friends episode where monica makes jam --- to cope with a break up i think?
> 
> rushed bc exams not one of my finest but writing these two make me happy and so do kudos and comments :))


End file.
